Introduction

14th-15th century: Gasparo, founder of the family, lives in Gomarolo (VI), on the Marostica hills.

1527- 1551: first mention of the surname “Poli”, i.e. sons or descendants of Polo.

c. 1790: the family moves to Fontanelle (VI).

1818: the family moves to San Luca (VI).

1885: the family moves to the plain, more precisely to Schiavon (VI) where it still resides.

500 years to do 18 kilometres!

"Sol chi non lascia eredità d’affetti / poca gioia ha dell’urna" wrote less than two hundred years ago the poet Ugo Foscolo: only he who leaves such memory behind that he will not be missed finds no comfort at the thought that a grave will religiously keep his remains after his death and be an occasion for family reunion.

While capturing the essence of Foscolo’s admonition, we should add that it is not only the material grave that inspires a healthy and constructive spirit of consanguinity or, to quote once more Foscolo’s poem, that loving correspondence that is the gift of heaven to men.

The knowledge of our ancestors life, the awareness of their many vicissitudes as testified by the scarse documentary data, the courage of their daily life in the precarious existence of the time, are also driving elements for a further, and always welcome, strengthening of family ties.

These are the main reasons behind this historical research work on the Poli family. In the intentions of the person who commissioned the work, but also of the author (truly and, I would say, remarkably in agreement on the subject), this work stands as something quite different from the so many and frequent overpraises or, worse, selfpraises of someone who has been successful in business.

This is an absolutely important detail, but not so relevant in this work, except perhaps for the understandable and, I would say, typically human desire to turn back and look at one’s own past and the past of his family after years of riding the future in an effort, largely repaid by results, to dress up his finest Grappas company in modern clothes.